¹⁵ In this confidence, I was planning to visit you first, so that you would have a second gracious gift. ¹⁶ Then I planned to travel from you on to Macedonia, and to return again from Macedonia to you to receive help from you on my way to Judea. ¹⁷ So when I made this plan, I did not do it lightly, did I? Or the things I plan, am I planning them the way the sinful flesh does, so that I would be saying both “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time?

¹⁸ As surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.” ¹⁹ For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us (by me, Silas,^[a] and Timothy), was not “Yes” and “No,” but in him the “Yes” stands firm. ²⁰ In fact, as many promises as God has made, they have always been “Yes” in him. For that reason we also say “Amen” through him to the glory of God.

²¹ God is the one who makes both us and you to be strong in Christ. He anointed us. ²² He sealed us as his own and gave us the Spirit as the down payment in our hearts.